


kept close

by dollylux



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Near Death, Pining Taako, Scent Kink, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-02-01 00:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: Magnus is badly hurt during a mission, and Merle's out of spell slots. Taako takes matters into his own hands.
Relationships: Magnus Burnsides/Taako
Comments: 8
Kudos: 115
Collections: The Taagnus Week Collection





	kept close

**Author's Note:**

> For Taagnus Week!
> 
> Day 1 prompt: tending wounds

Spare the Dying stabilizes Magnus. It doesn’t wake him.

Merle paces around behind Taako, noisy and freshly out of spell slots, and Taako wishes not for the first time that he had any control over the goddamn health of their stupid party.

“I bet there’s another cleric nearby! There’s that town we flew over the other day to get here. I can get on my Vroom Broom and--”

“And what, my dude? What? Bring some rando back here to put Magnus’s guts back inside of him? Huh? After all the shit we’ve been through, you’re really up to trusting some strange fuck with _anything_?”

Taako’s got both hands on Magnus’s stomach. He’s holding a gaping wound closed with will alone. He can feel the poison from the giant spider’s venom crackling along the edges of the wound, acidic and destroying tissue. His own palms burn with it.

Merle, for once, says nothing.

“Do you have a med kit?” Taako asks, his voice low. Resolved. He unties the waterskin from his own belt and splashes some of its contents on his hands to clean them. Merle digs through his shit for a little too long before he produces a leather pouch that unrolls when Taako tugs on the string holding it closed.

He bites the end of a length of thread to sever it from the spool. His hand shakes only a little as he threads the crescent shaped needle that will save Magnus’s life. Sweat drips in his eye and stings as the midsummer sun belts down on them in the clearing of this formerly evil forest. He glances over at Merle.

“Come hold it closed.”

“Taako, I’m the healer. You really should let me be the one to--”

Taako feels as venomous as any spider. His teeth grind against each other as he stares Merle down, glaring him into silence.

Merle sighs and grumps as he settles in on the opposite side of Magnus’s big body and leans over to hold the ends of the gaping wound open.

It comes to Taako again, vivid as a nightmare and in torturous slow motion. Razor edged fangs, sizzling with venom and unstoppable as they pierce Magnus’s body, lifting him up off the ground and throwing him a good twenty feet away from Merle and Taako.

A furious Fireball had obliterated the spider then, sending parts of it in every direction, including Taako’s hair.

The fangs had locked in and torn flesh, splitting Magnus’s belly open as cleanly as any surgical incision. Taako had lost the ability to breathe when they finally made it over to him, and it had taken a few moments for Merle to bring Magnus back from the brink and for Taako to calm his sudden panic attack into something manageable. 

Magnus is breathing. He’s breathing and he’s all sweaty and sickly pale and his hair looks awful. Taako would give him shit, if Magnus was awake to take it. He’s sunburned on his face and chest, but the skin of his stomach is several shades lighter, unused to such exposure to the sun. 

Taako runs the tips of his fingers along one of Magnus’s flanks, following the edge of the bottom rung rib to the tender meat of his side. 

“You stubborn son of a bitch,” Taako whispers, clutching the needle so tight he’s afraid it might break. He can feel Merle’s eyes on him, can feel the questions barely contained.

The sutures take some time. Taako is careful and deliberate, keeping the spacing even and the thread pulled just snug enough to close up the wound but not so tight that it’ll pucker. By the time it’s over, he’s got blood all over his hands and his chin is trembling and Magnus is stirring awake, probably from the pain.

Merle splashes some rotgut liquor from a weird brown bottle over the wound, surely cleansing it of any germs or sins. Magnus groans and reaches down to touch his stomach.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Taako barks, snatching Magnus’s wrist and tugging it away from the newly sutured wound. Magnus’s eyes slid open and he squints up at Taako in the bright afternoon sun. Taako just stares at him, a few traitorous tears sliding down his cheeks, hopefully shadowed and unnoticed. 

He can feel Magnus’s pulse beneath his fingertips where he clutches his wrist. Steady and sure and alive. Alive.

“Listen, you’re the fucking moron who threw yourself on spider fangs the size of your goddamn head like that was gonna accomplish fucking _anything_, so I think maybe you should just fucking listen to me for awhile! Do you need this message repeated?!”

His voice is shrill and crackling, and, infuriatingly, Magnus’s face softens into a faint smile.

“Did you do this?” he asks Taako, his fingers twitching towards his own stomach. Merle makes a noise beside him, like he’s about to take some kind of credit or defend himself for some imagined slight. Taako cuts him off with a withering side eye.

“I had to!” Taako snaps back, shoving the needle back into Merle’s med kit and pushing it all toward the dwarf so he can busy himself with washing his hands off again. “This flowery asshole ran out of fucking spellslots and you were bleeding out. What else was I supposed to do?”

The last question comes out too genuine, too afraid. Taako stops his frantic fidgeting and looks over at Magnus who is now sitting up and leaning back on one hand. Taako swallows around the lump in his throat and searches Magnus’s eyes, too shaken and too tired to hide any emotion that may be showing in his own.

“Thank you,” Magnus says quietly, holding Taako’s gaze so completely and with such intimacy that Taako feels heat spread across his cheeks. His ears flick, once and irritated.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” Taako mumbles, swatting at Magnus’s arm and pulling a scarf from around his own waist that he’s using as a belt. He lifts it, airy and pale blue and starry, and brings it down to wrap around Magnus’s torso. His knuckles brush warm skin, and Magnus says nothing, only lifts up enough to give Taako room to work and watches his progress.

“You could’ve called a ride from the moonbase,” Magnus says as Taako ties off the scarf, grinning when Taako meets his eyes, his stupid adorable snaggle tooth catching on his bottom lip.

Taako’s face and the tips of his ears are scarlet. He blinks at him a few times as he processes his own idiocy.

As if on cue, a travel pod drops down from the sky and comes to a hovering stop beside them. A hatch hisses and slides open, revealing the inside of their ride home. Merle clears his throat and manages to make it sound smug.

“Already done,” he says, and waddles his way to the bubble.

Taako glares after him and doesn’t bother to wipe the expression off when he turns back to Magnus. 

“Come on,” he huffs. He stands up and reaches out to help Magnus up, practically falling backwards on his own ass as he does. Together, they pull Magnus’s shredded shirt off, and Taako tucks the remnants of it into his own bag. Magnus leans on Taako on the way to the pod, wincing as the venom continues to eat away at his skin.

Merle has taken the Braking Seat, so Taako and Magnus settle into the other two without complaint. Taako helps Magnus with his seatbelt and gives his nod at Merle that they’re ready. He settles in against Magnus with a sigh.

Magnus is whisked away to the medbay, and Taako has no choice but to join Merle in the Director’s office for a quick debrief. He takes a long shower and spends the half hour required to completely brush out of his hair afterwards. He scrapes dried blood from beneath his nails and digs through Magnus’s bedside table until he finds a dark blue nail polish with holographic sparkles that will look gorgeous on him.

He paints his nails and lets them dry while he stares out the window at the eternal sky beyond, wondering for the hundredth time why the sight of endless stars is such a comfort to him.

It’s nearly midnight by the time he’s done everything he possibly can to avoid going to see Magnus, and so he walks across the moonbase on silent, elven feet, his silken robe billowing behind him.

There’s a single night nurse on duty when he makes his way inside, and she nods him towards the only room with a closed door.

Magnus is awake when Taako opens the door and peeks inside, and his smile upon realizing it’s Taako is big, immediate. Taako lets out the breath he’d been holding in and gives him a tired smile back as he steps inside and shuts the door. He keeps his hands behind him on the doorknob as he awkwardly leans back against it.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says, looking around at all the machines and equipment that know how to take care of Magnus when Taako didn’t do a good enough job himself. “Just wanted to see if they had to amputate.”

Magnus snorts out a surprised laugh. It’s gross.

“Amputate my _torso_?” he asks, pushing back on the bed to try and sit up. “I don’t think that’s how any of that works.”

He’s bare-chested still, a clean, white bandage wrapped around his middle. Taako can’t look away from it. 

“Come here,” Magnus says softly when Taako doesn’t snark back, when he doesn’t say a goddamn thing for way too long. Taako blinks and refocuses his eyes, almost shaking his head no before he can catch himself.

Maybe he shouldn’t. But he _wants_ to.

He shuffles forward in his BoB-issued slippers and comes to a stop next to Magnus’s bed, his arms folded over his chest. He keeps his gaze down, his expression as neutral as a sphynx.

“Taako?”

“Hmmmm?”

Taako looks up and can’t stop the tremble in his chin quick enough. He blinks, rapid and desperate to keep tears away. Magnus watches him, ocean-steady and gentle, like Taako’s the one who’s hurt.

Magnus reaches behind himself and unfastens the bandage, unwinding it from around his body and tossing it to the floor once he does. The wound is a closed scar now, thanks to the magical healing of competent clerics, a big, ugly slash from Magnus’s sternum down past his navel, disappearing under the covers. It’s thickly corded but clean, still an angry red that lets Taako know it’s tender, still healing beneath.

“See? I’m okay.”

Taako feels dampness on his cheeks and despises his own weakness.

He nods, once and quick. He wants to say something dismissive, something with a flick of his wrist and a toss of his still damp hair. Yes, of _course_ you’re okay. You’re one of the stars of the show, after all.

Magnus touches the back of Taako’s right hand, tugs on it. He holds Taako’s gaze as he pulls that hand free and guides it down to his belly, letting the tips of Taako’s fingers touch the thick ridge of the scar. Taako sucks in a quick breath, his whole body tensing up.

“It’s okay,” Magnus says in that same, even tone. He’s still watching Taako even as Taako stares in disbelieving fear at the gigantic scar. He can feel how gentle that gaze is. “You saved me.”

Taako sneers, an ugly twist of his mouth. Disgust at himself.

“I didn’t do shit, my man. Rearranged some deck chairs on the Titanic. All the stitches in the world doesn’t heal poison.”

“It keeps my insides where they belong,” Magnus says with a smile in his voice. Taako lets out a heavy sigh and slumps where he stands, leaning in closer toward Magnus.

“Today sucked,” Taako replies, the words too shaky to be casual.

“This is one of the coolest scars I have. I mean it!” He pulls on Taako’s wrist again when Taako narrows his eyes at him, tugging until Taako sits on the side of the bed in the small space left there. “I’ve got plenty of them.”

“Too many,” Taako mutters to himself, lifting his feet off the cold floor and tucking in next to Magnus properly. Magnus lifts an arm to drape it over Taako’s narrow shoulders while his other hand tries to cover Taako with the layers of blankets that Magnus has already thrown off of himself, hot-natured as he is.

Taako’s hand snakes around Magnus’s back, intending to lowkey cuddle him like that, but he encounters a scar along Magnus’s back, one that lines up with his spine and spans a good couple of feet. It ends in the dip of his lower back, just where Taako expects it to. He strokes back up the scar, the thickness of it familiar, the span of it second nature to touch from end to end with a single stroke of his hand.

“Don’t remember how I got that one,” Magnus says, quiet, troubled maybe. “I don’t really know how I got a lot of them, honestly. I guess that’s what trauma does to you. Who knows? But chicks dig ‘em.”

Taako rolls his eyes and doesn’t dignify that with a response. Magnus loves to rile Taako up, to weasel out any tiny compliment from him. Any small admission that he’s attracted to Magnus. The fucker.

His hand moves of its own volition and touches the side of Magnus’s neck, coming to a stop at a spot he can’t see but that he finds with no hesitation. A starbust of a scar, maybe the size of Taako’s thumbnail. 

He turns and tucks in against Magnus, his cheek coming to rest on an angry looking dash of a scar on his chest, near his armpit and exactly where Taako expected it to be. Even though he’s never done this. They’ve never done this.

“Who cares what chicks think,” Taako mumbles.

One of Magnus’s big hands cups the side of Taako’s head, fingertips so gentle where they rest on his drying, loose hair. He kisses his temple and takes a deep breath, like he’s savoring the smell of Taako’s shampoo or the way the purity of the night air up here clings to his hair.

With anyone else, it would be creepy. With Magnus, it feels like the sweetest of possession, like adoration. Like this is what it’s like between them.

Taako nuzzles and burrows in until his face is close to Magnus’s armpit, the soft hair there tickling his nose. He breathes Magnus in, freshly showered and still faintly musky, and a contentment so deep settles inside of him that his eyes slip closed. He relaxes on the bed, at Magnus’s side. 

He inhales again and again, sensing what this is doing to Magnus, the way goosebumps are flying over his skin and the way Magnus is now breathing faster, deeper. He buries his face into Magnus’s pit and presses a kiss there, small and secret and without a single thought.

_My man._


End file.
